Wow. I admit I'm very surprised to read that none other than Michelle Malkin is defending Obama over the Associated Press wiretapping "scandal."

The frenzy over AP is a stark reminder of basic party differences on the War on Terror. The Democrats put security first. The Republicans put trial lawyers, terrorists’ rights, and election campaigns first. The Democrats are acting to prevent another 9/11. The Republicans are stuck in a 9/10 world.

Woah!

And it turns out that it was Republicans who asked the IRS to look at the tax-exempt status of Tea Party groups.

Seven Republican members of Congress filed complaints with the IRS in 2010, claiming Tea Party groups engaged in partisan electioneering, leading to an IRS probe, according to agency documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) launched an examination of the Tea Party on Oct. 8, 2010, claiming a speech by a Tea Party leader made during the organization's annual convention that criticized President Barack Obama's education and foreign policies crossed the line from issue advocacy to partisan electioneering. [...]

The documents include letters sent from members of Congress on behalf of their constituents, including Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Susan Collins (R-ME), Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-VA), the late Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), and former Reps. Larry Combest (R-TX), Joe Scarborough (R-FL) and Robert Ehrlich (R-MD).

Fascinating! Who knew Republicans were so principled?

And listen to former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, on a possible investigation into the Benghazi attacks.

"I don't think that anyone should start pointing fingers in a personal way or suggest that people are trying to cover their political backsides. I just think that's ridiculous. I think we need to go forward. We need to be positive. There are failures. We need to get to the root of it and try to make our country more secure."

Oh, sorry.

My bad.

Malkin was actually defending FISA wiretapping under Bush, and it was the NAACP Republicans asked the IRS to investigate during the Bush administration -- and Senator Hutchison was speaking out against the formation of the 9/11 Commission.

You can see how I got confused.

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Frustrations boiled over at a House hearing on Wednesday when Attorney General Eric Holder let Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) know exactly how he felt about the "shameful" way the lawmaker was conducting himself as a member of Congress.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Issa suggested that the Department of Justice had violated the Federal Records Act during discussions with Labor Secretary nominee Tom Perez, and that President Barack Obama's administration was covering up the crime.

But as Holder tried to reply to Issa, he was interrupted by the California Republican.

"No, no, that's what you typically do," the attorney general shot back. "No, I'm not going to stop talking now."

"Mr. Chairman, would you inform the witness as to the rules of the committee," Issa said.

"It is inappropriate and too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress," Holder insisted, shaking his finger at Issa.

"It is unacceptable and it's shameful."

Out of the three supposed Obama beltway scandals, the AP story is clearly the worst, but what I find laughable is how conservatives are now piling on the administration in defense of journalists' right to publish stories based on government leaks against what they perceive as national security concerns. You may recall how many times conservatives called for the heads of the NY Times and Washington Post for stories about secret prisons and extraordinary renditions during the Bush years as well FISA. They went ballistic against any story that came out which made George Bush look bad, no matter what it was about. Oh, those damn journalists are all out to get George Bush, etc..librul bias...etc..

During the general election, Joe Scarborough was one such right-wing pundit who was calling for action against these nasty national security leakers because Romney and his ilk were saying these leaks were an effort to make Obama look tough on terrorism. Hmmm, now watch how Joe flips out when David Axlerod calls him on his past behavior. See, they did actually take The Scar's advice.

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The AP has a scathing reply to Deputy Attorney General’s claim that the subpoena he signed fulfilled DOJ guidelines on scope and notice. Among other details, it reveals the AP only learned via Cole’s letter that DOJ seized just portions of the call records of April and May 2012.

In addition, the AP makes the same point I keep making: the White House had told AP the risk to national security had passed and that it planned to release this information itself the next day.

Finally, they say this secrecy is important for national security. It is always difficult to respond to that, particularly since they still haven’t told us specifically what they are investigating.

We believe it is related to AP’s May 2012 reporting that the U.S. government had foiled a plot to put a bomb on an airliner to the United States. We held that story until the government assured us that the national security concerns had passed. Indeed, the White House was preparing to publicly announce that the bomb plot had been foiled.

The White House had said there was no credible threat to the American people in May of 2012. The AP story suggested otherwise, and we felt that was important information and the public deserved to know it.

Note what else is implied by the comment: the AP believed that the threat had posed a real threat, in contradiction to what the White House had been claiming at the time.

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D Magazine on Tuesday published a shockingly not safe for work voicemail from Dallas City Council candidate Richard P. Sheridan who said that the publication had not done enough to inform voters that his opponent was gay.

In the voicemail left over the weekend, Sheridan tells reporter Dan Koller that he's "extremely happy" that "Sodomite" Leland Burk lost to Jennifer Staubach Gates.

"You know, you didn't post the fact, communicate to voters that he's gay, and I think I did a pretty good job of communicating to voters," Sheridan, who only received 28 votes, opines. "You, sir, are cunt, bitch, coward, Mr. Koller. Dan Koller is a cunt, bitch, coward. And I don't think you have one testicle, sir. You're a sorry-ass, you're a disgrace to our city, you're a propagandist to the Sodomites.

"And when I see you, I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but minimally your eardrums will hurt, you motherfucker. Because the word fuck means abuse and if you're in the gay lifestyle, the mothers that bring their children up in the world, wanting to do good, want to live a good life, and you go with the Sodomites? You motherfucker, cunt, coward Dan Koller."

Sheridan adds that Koller would "regret it" the next time he saw him, but the "fucking coward" should not to call the police because it was not intended as a threat of bodily harm.

Koller responded on Tuesday with lyrics from Michael Jackson's "Bad."

"Well, Richard (or should I call you Dick? Yeah, I should), all I can say in response, Dick, is your talk is cheap; you’re not a man," Koller wrote. "The word is out, you’re doing wrong; gonna lock you up before too long. I’m telling you, just watch your mouth; I know your game, what you’re about."

"I sincerely hope that the man is never a Twitter user," D Magazine's Jason Heid added in a follow-up piece. "I’m sure that he could single-handedly add several degrees of red to Dallas’ appearance on the Geography of Hate map."

Just the other day, I wrote about how much I despise the corporate media. And here they are, in all their Alpha Girl, Mean Girl finest!

Ed Kilgore writes at the Washington Monthly:

Well, it doesn’t get much more official than this: an VandeHei/Allen “Behind the Curtain” column announcing that D.C. (“the town”) is “turning on” Barack Obama, and there will be nothing but venom coming from any direction for the foreseeable future:

Republicans have waited five years for the moment to put the screws to Obama — and they have one-third of all congressional committees on the case now. Establishment Democrats, never big fans of this president to begin with, are starting to speak out. And reporters are tripping over themselves to condemn lies, bullying and shadiness in the Obama administration.

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The IRS certainly deserves some of the criticism it's getting, but it's also worth looking at the groups they were examining a little closer.

I've been collecting the IRS filings for these organizations since they dropped off the FEC radar in early 2009. At that time, these political "civic" organizations were springing up like weeds after a spring storm. Let's take just one subset of the larger group and look more carefully.

American Majority Action is the 501(c)(4) companion to American Majority, the Koch-funded 501(c)(3) organization devoted to "training conservative activists." It is headed up by Andrew and Net Ryun, sons of former Kansas congressman Jim Ryun. Their initial report to the IRS for the short year ending June 30, 2011 described its program services as "issue advocacy and get out the vote operations in 4 states including 9 liberty headquarters." Secondary services included "capacity building grants to 32 like-minded organizations," and tertiary services included "health care policy issue advocacy." Amounts spent were $1,020,500, $529,000 and $224,000, respectively.

What like-minded organizations received grants? Here is a list of some, not all, since they did not list all 32 grantees:

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Someone needs to tell Fox regular Charles Krauthammer that the picture he's demanding to see of President Obama on the night of the attack in Benghazi, Libya has been available on the White House Flickr page since at least January:

Via Media Matters: Krauthammer Still Hasn't Seen This Photo Of Obama From Night Of Benghazi Attack:

Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer continued to hype the right-wing myth that President Obama was missing on the night of the September 11, 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

During a May 14 panel discussion on the Benghazi investigation during Fox News' Special Report, Krauthammer requested photographic evidence of President Obama's whereabouts on the night of the Benghazi attack:

KRAUTHAMMER: And where was the president on that night? We've all seen the video and the pictures--well the picture of the situation room--of Obama on the night of the Osama raid. And everybody looks at that, oh yeah he was really involved in that. Show me a picture of where he was on the night of the attack in Libya.

The claim that Obama was absent the night of the Benghazi attack has been repeatedly debunked, both by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey.

Some of Krauthammer's other tales he was telling in the segment have been debunked here and here as well.

House Republican leadership today responded to their session with President Obama in a press conference.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) condemned the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal on Wednesday, demanding that the administration hold someone responsible.

"The IRS admitted to targeting conservatives, even if the White House continues to be stuck on the word 'if,'" he told reporters at a weekly briefing. "My question isn't about who is going to resign. My question is who's going to jail over this scandal?"

Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday he had ordered the FBI to open a criminal probe in a growing scandal over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups for extra tax scrutiny.

Speaker Boehner made no mention of jobs during the Republican press conference today, nor did any of the other GOP House "leaders."

On January 7, 200--two weeks before Barack Obama took the oath of office--the Congressional Budget Office forecast the federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 at $1.2 trillion. Now, the CBO is projecting the deficit will be only $642 billion for FY 2013, $200 billion less than the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper estimated as recently as February.

For policymakers in Washington, the implications couldn't be clearer. For starters, the counterproductive Beltway fixation on immediate debt reduction, which economists have warned is slowing U.S. economic growth and costing millions of jobs, should be jettisoned ASAP. And to be sure, the Republicans' next round of debt ceiling hostage-taking should be condemned as the economic sabotage it is.

The CBO explained why the U.S. fiscal picture is improving so dramatically:

If the current laws that govern federal taxes and spending do not change, the budget deficit will shrink this year to $642 billion, CBO estimates, the smallest shortfall since 2008. Relative to the size of the economy, the deficit this year--at 4.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)--will be less than half as large as the shortfall in 2009, which was 10.1 percent of GDP...

CBO's estimate of the deficit for this year is about $200 billion below the estimate that it produced in February 2013, mostly as a result of higher-than-expected revenues and an increase in payments to the Treasury by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. For the 2014-2023 period, CBO now projects a cumulative deficit that is $618 billion less than it projected in February. That reduction results mostly from lower projections of spending for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the public debt.

By 2015, the annual deficit is now projected to just 2.1 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, well below the 40-year historical average of 3.1 percent. The gap is expected to grow to 3.5 percent by 2023, "because of the pressures of an aging population, rising health care costs, an expansion of federal subsidies for health insurance, and growing interest payments on federal debt."

The new CBO numbers are just the latest confirmation of House Speaker John Boehner's admission that "we have no immediate debt crisis." Coming on the heels of an analysis by the Hamilton Project estimating that austerity at the federal, state and local level has cost up to 2.2 million American jobs, the CBO report should help put to lie that more budget cutting is needed in Washington. As the New York Times explained just last week:

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